


Racing In The Street

by JuweWright



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 60s, AU, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Greasers, Alternate Universe - Music, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, American - Freeform, Band, Coming of Age, Drugs, F/M, Forbidden Love, Gen, Inspired by Music, M/M, Musicians, Other, POV Alternating, POV Multiple, Rock'N'Roll, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-07 23:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12852270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuweWright/pseuds/JuweWright
Summary: Sirius Black is a guitarrist in a band. James is the lead singer. Peter Plays drums and Tonks is the Keyboarder. It's the 60s in the land of hope and dreams.Young Remus Lupin and Lily Evans have grown up in an Anglo-Irish neighbourhood and don't belong to any kind of group. One night both of them end up in a club where they first encounters "The Marauders" and their music. They also suddenly find themselves in the middle of a world where there's a huge gap between the rich shoreline-kids and the italo-American Greasers, who are trying to escape their unavoidable future as blue collar workers.





	1. Tramps Like Us

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: As always, characters belong to JKR, I just play with them.
> 
> FIrst and foremost, I blame the Bruce Springsteen Autobiography for this. And because he is to blame for this, I am going to Name the chapters after Springsteen Songs or lines from them (and the whole fic as well).  
> Secondly, I was raised on British English, yet this story doesn't make any sense unless it's set in America, so I am going to try to stick to American English (and very possibly fail miserably).  
> My Vision of the New Jersey 60s will not be accurate at any given point. Let's say, it's inspired by a historical setting, but I don't think I could actually manage to draw a perfect picture of that period. Firstly, because I have never been to NJ, secondly because I am not American, and thirdly because I am way too young to be able to get everything right in a 60s setting. I will try to avoid anachronisms, but they might still happen. I am actually better versed in Victorian Britain than I am in 60s America. So I am navigating unchartered waters here.  
> I took some liberties with the age of certain characters which were necessary to make this story roll.  
> This is very much a trial run and I have no clue where it will be going, but I hope some of you will like it. I just had that picture of Sirius and James in a band in my head forever and a day and it needed to be written.  
> Finally, although I think it is clear from the setting I chose: It's a non-magical AU. The only magical moments will be sunsets... and perhaps kisses... or guitar solos. Who knows?  
> I am not sure whether I will have to up the rating at some point. There will - as usual - not be smut, because I just can't and won't write it. But there will be swearing and there might be violence and I can't guarantee that everyone gets to live.

My name is Nymphadora Tonks. Yes, this is a name. No, I don’t know what mental illness my parents suffered from the day they chose it. I go by “Dora” at home, which is totally not me and will never be me. Dora sounds like cute dresses and shoulder-length brown hair with a bit of a curl at the bottom. I go by “Tonks” with the boys and I am okay with that.

This story starts on the day of the first proper gig we landed after I joined the band. I was excited, because I was totally in awe of playing with “The Marauders” as they called their outfit. My family is pretty huge. We are a mix of Irish and Italian that somehow happened when my great-grandfather hopped onto a ship during the Potato Famine and bumped into my great-grandmother on Ellis’ Island. Sirius was something of a cousin of mine – one of these relatives that you bump into at every birthday party you attend and that share some percentage of your blood, but nobody ever did the math how much exactly. He was insanely handsome and he knew it. Although I had known him forever, I couldn’t remember him in anything but black pants, a skin-tight button down shirt and a rough looking leather jacket. Sirius had been my hero since I was a kid. He was seven years older than me and I felt it was a huge honor when he asked me whether I wanted to join “The Marauders” after their last keyboarder had thrown a fit and left without another word. My grandmother wasn’t overly thrilled that I hung out with Sirius and his “Bunch of shaggy looking Greasers” these days, but I enjoyed every minute of it. One minute I had been a clumsy odd-ball girl, who tried to avoid meeting any of her cheerleader-perfect class mates on her way to piano practice and the next moment I was in a band.

I checked my face in the mirror. My hair was as wild as I could make it look - which included the color. Mom had not been amused when I had come home sporting pink hair. She was still not amused, but she had had to get used to it. I applied some make up. Not too much, just enough to let me look a little older, so I would not look like somebody’s little sister behind my keys.

Somebody banged against the bathroom door with their fists, yelling at me that I had been in there for about a decade and should come out. That somebody sounded very much like my auntie Bellatrix. Auntie was the best word for her really. She was only ten years older than me and she had efficiently avoided the road that led to adulthood up to now. Her weekends were spent in the backseats of some guy’s car, cruising down the highway, hanging out at parties, getting ridiculously sloshed and experimenting with various drugs. She was massively into the whole Beat scene and – in my eyes and in the eyes of those friends who met her – completely insane. I wasn’t entirely sure what had been first, the drugs or the insanity. Fact was, if Bellatrix banged on your door, you better opened it quickly, before she rammed it in with a fire extinguisher or sat the whole house on fire as a revenge.

I emerged from the bathroom unscathed and checked my wristwatch, a cheap thing I had stolen at the local gas station. Sirius was due to pick me up any minute, so I shouted a quick good bye to my parents. They had obviously already had their daily dose of Bellatrix and were frozen in their seats in the living room. Bellatrix struck terror into the hearts of men, whether they were officially her superiors or not. Even though I wasn’t the perfect daughter, one visit from Bellatrix was usually enough to get back into their good graces. I was still their baby girl, got good grades at school, didn’t get wasted or passed out on drugs. I occasionally smoked, but so did my mum. So all in all, they had not struck too bad a deal when they got me.

“When will you be home, Dora?” my dad managed to ask.

“Gig starts at 8” I responded. “Guess it’s gonna be late. Don’t wait up. Sirius promised he’ll get me home.”

“Have a good night, darling.”

My parents, though not fond of pink hair, were generally not averse to our subculture. Sirius’ appearance didn’t really bother them, because he spent his Sundays on our couch, complimenting my mum’s baking, chatting to my dad about baseball and helping me with my math homework. If someone behaved like a human being, they were accepted as one by my parents. The rest of the family wasn’t half as open minded – which was the main reason why Sirius’ Sundays were spent in our house rather than his own home.

When I stepped out of the house, Sirius’ old van was already waiting for me in the driveway. The old car had been resurrected from the dead with the help of a lot of spare parts from the junkyard, some knowledge about engine building and a lot of sweat. It was the band’s reliable – well, more or less reliable – steed, which carried the instruments and equipment to the venues they played in. Sirius hated the car with a passion. His heart belonged to his motorcycle – which had undergone a similar procedure as the van, but was in much better shape these days – but he understood that transporting amps and guitars and a drum set on the back of a bike was a bit difficult to achieve. I kicked the front door on the passenger side and lifted the handle to open it. I was so used to doing this to the van, that I had accidentally done it to my dad’s car a week earlier and had been shouted at for fifteen consecutive minutes, before I got a word in to explain myself.

“Hey Kiddo”, Sirius said with a grin. “Ready for your first gig?”

I was excited as hell. I was giddy. My heart was racing and my fingers were sweating. But hell yeah, I was ready. 


	2. Thunder Road

 

“Do you really have to drag me to that concert?” Remus moaned for the ump-teenth time that evening.

A young girl was sitting on the windowsill, watching the sunset. Her long red hair looked as if it was glowing in the orange light and her green eyes gleamed as she watched him pull a sweater over his shirt. She stood up, walked over to him to pull the collar out and sighed.

“Yes I do have to drag you to that concert, because if you don’t come along, mum won’t let me go. She’s way too afraid of me ‘falling in with the wrong crowd’.”

“Which equals ‘falling in with Severus’.”

“Exactly. Severus has never done anything to warrant her hatred and distrust. He’s never been anything but kind to me.”  


“He once almost killed your sister. I guess in your mum’s eyes that’s almost as bad as if he’d tried to kill you.”  


“I admit he overreacted, but he did that because she had been nasty to me.”  


“You are willing to see the good in every man, Lily Evans, and I adore you for it. But I will never forgive you for dragging me to this dreadful concert.”

“You might enjoy it.”

“I don’t like rock music. I don’t like these boys who pretend they are the new Jimi Hendrix because they found out which way round to hold an electric guitar. I hate the crowd that gathers at these places and I’d much rather stay home and read a book. But I am going to come with you because you are my best friend and because I agree with your mum that Severus Snape is anything but good company.”

Lily sighed and threw her purse, a packet of tissues and her keys into her handbag. Remus sighed. Yes, he would accompany Lily to this concert. He would drive her there, make sure she was safe and sound while she enjoyed the show and afterwards he’d take her home just the same way as he had always done. Her mother trusted him and he had proven himself to be worthy of that trust uncountable times. He’d always been Lily’s friend ever since they became neighbors and since his own parents didn’t like him much – his father had issues with his son not partaking in any manly pastime and preferring libraries over football fields – he had become a fixture in the Evans household, the third child, the brother that the two so very different girls had never had.

They drove down to the city center and Remus parked the old battered green car which Lily had lovingly christened “Frankenstein’s Monster” in a road only two blocks away from the venue. As they walked towards the bar, they noticed a transporter, which looked like a very weird hybrid of several different brands of cars. A ratty looking young man was just making his way down the pavement with a huge amp on his back. He was panting, sweating and cursing profusely.

“Oy, Prongs, where’s the Gibson?” came a shout from another guy whose upper body had vanished inside the transporter while he tried to pull some of the equipment out. Lily giggled and poked Remus’ side. Remus sighed and rolled his eyes. Welcome to the world of Lily Evans where a wriggling ass snuck into a tight pair of black pants could lead to a hormonal avalanche breaking loose. He had to admit though, that the man knew how to dress.

A second boy appeared from the other side of the transporter, carrying a guitar case and a small monitor box. His messy dark hair was standing off in all directions.

“Tonks already took it inside. Impressive lady, your cousin. I’d have expected her to collapse under the weight of all the stuff she was carrying.”

“Careful, James. She can break your nose with one punch.”

“She’s not going to break my nose. She likes me.”

“And how do you know that?”

“She’s a girl. Girls like me.”

“She’s way too young for you. I’ll have to kick you if you try your charms on her.”

“Sirius, I cannot date a woman with pink hair, my honor forbids it.”

James turned around and almost bumped the monitor box into Lily.

“So sorry, honey,” he said, providing her with a wide smile that looked like a sunrise over Hudson Bay.

“No worries,” Lily replied nonchalantly. “We’re heading to your concert tonight, guys.”

James had been about to just walk on but paused his steps while his companion finally pulled his head out of the transporter to reveal a handsome face surrounded by shiny black hair and pair of storm-grey eyes that flitted first to Lily and then to Remus.

“Oh, cuties,” he said. “You should hurry up so you can stand close to the stage then. And if you want to you can ask James for an autograph and your favorite song. He’s deep into this whole rock musician thing and he’d love to sign any papers, photos or body parts for you:”

Remus wondered whether he should be offended but Lily laughed and so did James and he let it slip. The guys were nice enough. Their humor wasn’t really made for the ears of delicate females, but even though Lily was definitely female, she had never been delicate. She was strong willed and focused and she knew exactly what she wanted from life and had the means and the brains to achieve it.

“See you inside, guys,” she said with a nod and they made their way inside the bar to find a spot with a decent view of the stage. They had just settled on a standing table next to one of the wooden pillars that supported the ceiling, when a familiar figure appeared in the doorway and Lily let out a squeal that would have been fitting for a teenager but was terribly unfitting for the twenty-something girl she was. She crossed the room in a few strides and hugged the newcomer happily.

“Severus!” she cried. “I am so glad you made it!”


End file.
